Ghost

Good day. We have been exploring Frederick’s Busch’s short story Domicile, and last time, I stated that I was putting off discussing a critical part. The time has come. There must be no further delay.

Domicile concerns a young man, recently graduated from college, who is living in a primitive trailer on the property of an old motel. My theory is that the story is about the protagonist’s being caught between childhood and adulthood, caught and reluctant to move forward. The title, Domicile, seems to raise a distinction between where one lives permanently vs. temporarily.

On the property, there are a number of structures, other trailers, run-down cottages, and a main house where Mrs. Peete, the landlady, and her daughter, Rebecca, live. Here is the (long) first line:

“It made me think of fairy tales—stories of children who drop from the sky or roll from the cupped petals of a silky flower—because he simply appeared one morning and was picked up by a yellow van, a small school bus, which meant that an actual adult had made arrangements for him, and that school authorities acknowledged his existence, and that he was an authentic child, not a product of my second-rate education, or of what I considered then, with what I’ll now call theatrics, as my third-rate mind.”

On a first reading, the reader might be puzzled. What, in a story called Domicile, the heck is going on? Apparently, the narrator is seeing a child leave a cottage to be picked up by a school bus. However, the narrator takes his largely visual impression and runs with it, making poetic meaning (or, yes, the implied author does this). The sight of the boy makes him think of “fairy tales” where children suddenly appear. The child is “authentic,” not the product of the narrator’s “a second-rate education,” or of what the narrator calls “theatrics” at some vantage point in the future.

‘Kay.

Is there any clue here that this is a story about a young man living in a ramshackle trailer, lacking ambition and spinning his wheels?

There is, best beloved. Of course, this is a story meant to be read more than once. The first time through, the reader may be enchanted but, not knowing the whole thing, will have difficulty understanding.

There is the evocation of fairy tales—stories of children. The narrator yearns for a loving childhood which he apparently did not have. Amidst his tenure at the trailer—a sort of staging area for the future—he sees a boy who may seem like himself, although this is out of his awareness. He worries about this child, seeing no adults around to offer care, and this must remind us of the way he describes his own childhood where his parents are lost in compartments of feeling. He tries to imagine what life is like for this solitary child whose main activity is going to school. Is there an adult who comes to the cabin to make sure he eats? The protagonist wanders the grounds, anticipating the discovery of the corpses of the boy’s parents, but never finds them.

One morning, he encounters the boy: “He looked like a miniature man who indicated that fate would have its say.”

“Kay, this is a pretty mighty clue. The boy looks like a miniature man who indicated that fate would have its say. This is a near encapsulation of the whole story. A miniature man—that is the protagonist, a human who relies on fate to guide him. Fate as opposed to adult decision and resolve. However, the boy, who says his name is Artie Arthur, tells the protagonist that school is his (Artie’s) responsibility. “Sometimes, you just soldier on,” he says. This is just the kind of advice the protagonist might give himself, an argument to other parts of his personality that speak about how school lacks value. And, in this scene, Artie refers to the story’s title. “’Domicile’, he called, sweeping his arm around him.” (He is at the door of his house). As we have discussed, the word domicile means one’s permanent residence. Here, I believe Artie is saying to the narrator, “This dump is my permanent home because I’m a child. You are here temporarily.

The protagonist (I’ll start calling him David again) asks Mrs. Peete about Artie:

“Could I ask you something about the neighborhood?”

…

Mrs. Peete replies:

“…The motel people lived in this house. One of them’s a ghost. I have seen him, but never mind. I don’t argue about ghosts.”

“A little boy?”

…

“A man,” she said.”

She refuses to say anymore. Is David seeing a ghost? A ghost of himself?

Whoa!

“I looked at Artie’s cabin: still no car. When, I wondered, would someone come to rescue us?”

In the climax, David breaks into Arties’s deserted cabin. There’s a smell inside that reminds him of getting his hair cut as a boy.  The cabin looks as if it was inhabited some time ago; there’s rotting food, old toothpaste rolls. Mice droppings. Artie is “there, but no place else.”

David, fearing he’s dead, goes to look for his body but doesn’t find it. Artie has disappeared.

This leads to the final scene that I described last time. David goes to Mrs. Peete and borrows money so that he can move on. And we know from the narration that he will survive and look back on these events from a vantage point many years in the future.

I don’t think Artie is a ghost in any literal spirits of the dead sort of way. I do think Artie is from David’s imagination and that he teaches David about surviving on your own, that he must break the unfortunate bonds with his childhood. David tries to care for the child that he was and transforms.

This beautiful story refuses to explain itself, forcing the reader to search for meaning.

The clock on the clubhouse wall says it’s time to go. Next week, a new story, Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo.

Till then.

#Domicile #FrederickBusch #AlanBray